1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine for topping and tailing vegetables, especially root vegetables and more especially carrots.
2. Acknowledgement of Prior Art
Modern farming techniques and bulk food processing, as, for example, in the canned vegetable and soup industry have resulted in the demand for bulk quantities of prepared vegetables ready for immediate use. Farming machinery has been developed for the actual harvesting, by which is meant the removal of the vegetables from the field, but a significant problem has been encountered in the preparation of the freshly harvested vegetables for bilk delivery to the food processing industry.
For example, carrots and some other root vegetables are required by the food processing industry to be delivered free of substantial blemishes. Such blemishes may include a fibrous discoloured crowns and stringy, elongate tails. Thus, the food processing industry requires the delivery of such vegetables as carrots in a topped and tailed and washed condition. These requirements may also apply to other elongate vegetables such as beans which also require removal of less edible end parts.
Generally the preparation of harvested vegetables for the food market has been a very labour intensive procedure resulting in increased cost in the end product such as canned soups, canned vegetables, sauces and the like.
Some attempts have been made to automate the preparation of harvested vegetables for use by the bulk food processing industry. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,098,398 was issued Jun. 2, 1914 to Phinney. That patent discloses a machine for trimming the ends of string beans. Phinney discloses a carrying belt for beans which may lay in troughs or pockets transverse to the length of the belt. The belt is tilted in one direction to slide the beans so that their ends project transversely of the belt and may be cut off. The belt may be then tilted in the other direction so that the beans slide in the other direction to project transversely off the belt so that they, also, may be cut off.
Phinney's principle of tilting apparatus in one direction to slide vegetables toward a first knife to have first ends cut off and then tilting apparatus in another direction to slide the vegetables towards a second knife to have the other ends cut off, has been utilised in later more sophisticated apparatus. For example, Zanetti in U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,925 issued May 23, 1989 discloses a conveyor belt for trimming vegetables such as cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, eggplants. The conveyor belt comprises a plurality of individual containers. Another apparatus of this type is marketed by the Goodale Manufacturing Co. of Watsonville, California.
Various problems have been encountered in the provision of machinery which tilts the vegetables in first one direction and then in the other direction. Generally such machinery has involved the use of a conveyor belt which comprises individual compartments for the vegetables, the compartments running from one side of the belt to the other and being linked by means of flexible bands or chains. The conveyor belt may run on side rails one of which and then the other of which is alternately raised and lowered to provide a tilting of the belt. Because the belt comprises individual trays carried by connecting drive chains, it may be excessively flexible. Its support between the rails on which it runs may cause problems especially when very heavy vegetables, such as carrots, are to processed. There may be tendency for the belt to sag. Such sagging or stretching of the belt may cause problems in the setting of the position of a rotary knife for trimming the vegetables. It is necessary stop means to prevent the vegetables from sliding right out of the troughs of the belt but it is necessary that such stop means do not impede the action of a rotary knife. If the troughs sag or move out of position a rotary knife may either fail to cut right through the vegetable or foul on the floor of the trough or on its stop means at its end. still further, conveyor belts comprising individual metal troughs possibly made of stainless steel connected by some type of flexible band or by a chain maybe to difficult to move. It is convenient that such belts be endless belts and be rotated by suitable drive means. For many endless conveyor belts, the suitable drive means may be a sprocket wheel located at adjacent ends of a conveyor run and return run. For complex belts comprising a number of individual troughs connected by endless bands or chains, the drive means may be more complex. The present inventor has addressed the numerous interactive features which make the provision of a suitable machine for top and tailing carrots difficult to provide.